This a historical book about the whale ship Essex, a US whale ship that during the early 1800's was attacked by a sperm whale and destroyed. The crew that survived were forced to abandon ship, were crammed into little life boats, and left adrift on the ocean.
In The Heart of the Sea is the true account, written years later by surviving crew members of the disaster. The tragedy was so terrible that the crew mates who were cast adrift had to eat the bodies of the crew mates who died of thirst, in order to avoid starvation.
Years later, Herman Melville would read about this tragedy and be inspired to write Moby Dick, a book that would become an American classic.
My problem with history has always been this: it's usually written in a boring and heavily prosaic style. I like history, and so often I pick up history books and think about buying them because they have an interesting premise. For the most part, I don't buy them though, because I've found that no matter how interesting a history book sounds I usually can't bring myself to finish it because an interesting idea is written about in a dull fashion.
Heart of the Sea won the 'National Book Award' and was recommended to me by a friend, so I figured I would give it a shot. The first few chapters were not very interesting and I struggled to stay with it. I'm glad I did though because the book got better as it went along and turned out to be an interesting read. It narrowly avoided falling into the dust like so many other history books I start, but it didn't and I'm glad because it turned out to be pretty good.
Recommended Reading: Chased by Sea Monsters
This is a really cool non-fiction book about prehistoric sea monsters, many of which are ancestors of today's modern sea monsters. Nigel Marven and his co-authors are the same people who worked on the "Walking with Dinosaurs" documentary aired by National Geographic. This book is really fascinating because its both informative and has a lot of great pictures of prehistoric sea monsters.
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2 comments:
History has so much to teach us, but it takes a great writer to make it real and interesting without being heavy-handed. Unfortunately, there aren't enough great writers doing this. I agree with you that history books often struggle to keep the reader's interest.
I have enjoyed "historical novels" in which the writer takes poetic license to fill in the blanks. It's often good reading, but the trouble, of course, is that the mind eventually catalogues this account as historical fact.
I enjoyed David McCullough's accounts: The Path Between the Seas (about the Panama Canal) and Mornings on Horseback (the pre-presidential years of Teddy Roosevelt).
I've seen David McCullough's books before, but I've never read them. I've thought about reading them, especially 1776, I'll have to check them out sometime.
Your right, historical novels are usually pretty good. I just finished Gates of Fire by Stephen Pressfield, its the story of the 300 Spartans that defended Greece. They are making it into a movie called the 300.
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